On Stage This Week: Wives get schooled in classic comedy, a government cover-up of nuclear proportions, and more!

Yesterday, at least, was a happy one. Good new work contract. Meeting with a set builder for a new show. Secured a special confectionery product I’d been questing for. It’s the little things.

I hope you’re also able to say you had a happy yesterday. And that you’ll be able to say so again tomorrow.

The new theatre season is officially under way now and with three new opens this week, plus one show continuing into its second week, you’ve got four good bets to choose from.

Before we jump into it, I want to take a moment to welcome Robyn Lester to our review team for the new season. She comes to On Stage having been a reviewer previously for the Charlebois Post and will be our point person at The Gladstone this season. Be kind and say hello if you spot her!

On Stage This Week

Just a reminder that the easiest way for you to tell us, and everybody, what you think of the shows you’re seeing is to use the new audience rating system that accompanies every review (and, soon, every show listing). All it takes is one click, one to five stars, and your vote will count. Let’s let Ottawa know what audiences are thinking.

The School For Wives

Seeking to outwit all the cuckolds in town whose wives routinely cheat, Monsieur La Douche reaches the culmination of a long term plan to train the perfect wife – completely innocent and pliable to his will – in this new translation of Molière’s classic comedy.

From Robin Lester’s review: Directed by John P. Kelly, the cast of this play brought an energy to the stage that only added to the humour. Drew Moore’s surfer-dude portrayal of Horace was particularly funny. And Tess Mc Manus pulled off the happily ignorant character of Agnès in a very tactful way. It would have been so easy to play that character as over-the-top ditsy and dumb, but Mc Manus managed to give her some dignity. (Full review: onstageottawa.com/theschoolforwivesreview)

The School For Wives marks the official kick-off to the season from one of Ottawa’s mainstages and what an open it was. Take one of Ottawa’s most well-known and loved directors, add what is pretty much a cast of Ottawa’s best and brightest, and, well, there’s plenty to love in The School For Wives, including enough romantic hijinks to make your head spin and a whole lot of naughty rhymes that had the audience laughing throughout.

There was a bit of a Loony Toons vibe from it, so especially if you’re a fan of the classic WB, you’ll definitely come away smiling.

The Boy in The Moon (opens this week)

The Great Canadian Theatre Company kicks off its 40th fearless season with a play based on the powerfully touching memoir by Ian Brown.

The Boy in the Moon is based on Ian Brown’s powerful, honest, and emotionally moving memoir of raising his son. Walker’s abilities are extremely impaired due to a rare genetic condition that challenges the family at every turn. The play captures the difficult but joyous journey to understand and care for Walker.

The Perils of Persephone (opens this week)

The Ottawa Little Theatre opens its season with some atomic fun in The Perils of Persephone.

By the playwright of the hugely popular Wingfield series, this gentle Satirical comedy set in Persephone Township pits a canny farm family against government “suits” bent on cover-up after a truckload of nuclear waste lands in their swamp.

The Dining Room (opens this week)

If you live out in the west end of town or fancy a trip thereabouts, Kanata theatre also kicks off their season this week with The Dining Room.

The dining room: a place where family assembles daily for breakfast and dinner and for any and all special occasions – a source of stability and permanence in a world of change. Through a mosaic of interrelated scenes – some funny, some touching, some rueful – Gurney creates a portrait of a vanishing species: the upper-middle-class WASP. Journeying through the decades, the actors change roles, personalities and ages as they portray a wide variety of characters, from little boys to stern grandfathers, and from giggling teenage girls to Irish housemaids.

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